


Five lovers

by azena (orphan_account)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Different Types of Love, F/M, First Love, Life Lessons, University, break ups, mostly reflection about what love can be, smutty aspects
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 08:51:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8095804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/azena
Summary: Being with one person your whole life is a mirrage provoked by the romanticising of the one true love. It is much more realistic to believe that you will be with several people, each one drawn in your life depending on the period in your development as a person. This story is a nerrative of five of those people, who played an important part in your life.





	

1.

You knew Armin since you were able to form a conscious thought. You grew up in the same neighborhood and your mothers used to drink coffee together while taking you on walks. When you started growing up you visited the same kinder garden, the same schools, and because you knew each other you stuck together for comfort. Armin was a shy kid, always enamored in a book with an array of ideas swimming in his bright mind. What made him a genius in your eyes, however, brought on the ridicule of the other kids in school. He was badly bullied, always called names but thankfully he had you to protect him, which might have gotten him even more bullied but at least kept the lunch money his pocket.

As you grew older and started developing, you found new friend but you remained close. You talked about anything that worried you and interested you. Many first experiences were also shared between you two. The first alcoholic drink you ever had was together with him. You stole two beers from your father’s stash kept in the garage and drank them in his room when his parents were not around. The taste was bitter and a bit unpleasant. At first you couldn’t get why people liked drinking these stuff. After you finished the whole thing though, and your head became a bit more fuzzy, and you started laughing more, and felt sleepy, you decided this will not be your last time drinking. 

He was also your first kiss. It happened when you were fifteen and just started getting interested in the other sex. You used to watch all these teenage movies where the girl, after several obstacles, got together with the love of her life and at end of each of them the main characters will kiss. The press of lips seemed so enticing that you shared your curiosity about it with Armin and he proposed to try it out. Your palms were sweaty and even though you didn’t think you harbored any romantic feelings for him you couldn’t help but feel nervous. As he leaned in, your mouth went dry and when you finally kissed you forgot how to breathe. It only lasted a second but when you parted you both felt like under a spell. Kissing was enticing and made you feel excited in all the right ways. Therefore that was not the last time that happened. 

At first you told each other that it was just practice in order to get better at kissing but soon the moments you stole in making out behind closed doors became increasingly often. It wasn’t surprising that at one point when you were a bit older and bit better able to understand what you were doing, you decided to take the next step. Your first time was not as magical as you expected. It was awkward, sloppy and painful. Neither of you knew what you were doing but you were happy because you were together. After his end came unsurprisingly quickly you laid intertwined together and talked sweet nothings to each other. In the last year of high school you were officially dating and you were in love. It was the type of puppy love that made you think you are mature and that nothing bad could ever happen or bring you apart. But it did. At the end of the year you both went away to university. The distance was too much to handle for two young people faced with so many new exciting opportunities. Eventually you separated. Even though you haven’t heard from him in years, with the exception of a birthday greeting on Facebook, you still think about your time together fondly with a sort of melancholy you save for memories from your childhood. It was a good time, two kids who didn’t know any better thought they could conquer the world because they loved each other. It was silly but you still remember it with a smile. 

2\. 

Eren was the first boyfriend you got when you went to university. You were a little girl from a little town going to the big city in a university attracting young minds from all over the country. You felt lost in the sea of people flowing though the university grounds and felt so small it was suffocating. Once you lost the safety vest that was your boyfriend from back home, you grabbed desperately for anything to call your own and help you make sense of all the new experiences. That’s when you met Eren. He was a nice guy and his presence felt familiar and soothing. You met him at a freshmen’s party where he looked almost as lost as you. You talked about your lives back home and about your dreams for the future. He wanted to be a doctor, wanted to save the world and charmed you with his ideas of a better future. He had a passion you admired strongly and you found yourself falling for him. 

When the weather was nice you used to have lunch out on the grounds and lay there listening to music until you definitely needed to go back to class. You would sleep in each other’s rooms and stay late discussing books, watching movies or enjoying each other’s bodies to your own content. He was not a virgin but his experience did not seem significant in the way he needed clear instructions to make you feel good. With time he got it though and your times together got more enjoyable. You got settled into a comfortable routine of knowing each other’s habits and schedules, and slipped downhill more and more into blissful ignorance of warning signs. 

Your little safe space started to break apart however when you finally began integrating into the life of the university. You found new friends, new places and a job that opened your eyes about the things that you were blind to. Like how there were only 5 topics that Eren really enjoyed talking about and would if you lend him your ear, and how he became guarded around any type of controversial conversations. How he seemed to have all these great plans but did nothing to achieve them and how at the end of the day you seemed to have nothing in common but that one movie you both seemed to like. You were both stuck in a limbo of your own doing that didn’t make you feel necessarily happy but provided a false sense of security. You realized that there was much more outside this relationship that you wanted and needed to explore before your university years flew by. You needed to find yourself and you couldn’t do it with the deadweight of a boyfriend who didn’t really fit you dragging you down. One evening while you were re-watching another episode of a show you had both seen numerous times you suggested you break up. It was not a pretty separation. There were tears flowing and blame thrown all over the place but you walked out of there a free woman and you felt happy. From the looking glass of years passed you don’t consider this relationship such a mistake as you did that day. It played the role it was intended for – to show you that sometimes you are better off alone. You never heard from Eren again.

3\. 

Levi was a guy you met during your soul-searching period. He was into alternative music, had tattoos all over his body and played the bass in a band. You were instantly drawn to his bad boy attitude when you saw him throw a beer into a guy’s face after a concert in one of the pubs in town. Your loins stirred and you imagined what it would be like being with him. You didn’t think you would see him again until he bummed a smoke out of you in front of the bar later that night while you were waiting for your friend to finish making out with the guy he met. Your waiting was cut short however when he brought you back to his place.

He was probably one of the best lovers you even had and you learned a lot about yourself while being with him. He was usually rough and demanding. There was nothing stereotypically loving when you joined your bodies together but his ability to stir you up and drive you insane with the flick of a finger engrained him in your brain through shattering orgasms. He was the one who thought you to voice out your desired and stand up for yourself, and he was also the one who showed you what your kinks were. 

You never did have a real relationship with him though because he was above societally oppressive monogamy. Being with him was not only freeing for your body but for your mind as well. In-between steamy sessions when he lit up a cigarette and sat on the windowsill bathed in moonlight, he shared his ideas with you and you listened soaking up everything like a sponge. Years of teachings about your role as a person and as a woman were shed like the skin of a snake experiencing its transition into a new period. You changed how you viewed yourself, your body and your path. You found the desire to concentrate on your own happiness unobstructed by the norms that your parents and your surroundings were trying to force on you. 

You also found out however that this kind of open relationship was not what you wanted. You found that out when you walked in on him with another man and you felt the pang of jealousy and hurt struck through your heart. You couldn’t blame him, because you had agreed thinking that was what you wanted. The freedom of sharing yourself with more than one. You knew it was happening and it had happened before but knowing and seeing were two different things. You walked out of his life that day bringing with you everything that you learned and heading towards your personal happiness. You didn’t really stay in touch but he still visited your wet dreams from time to time.

4.  
To Erwin you gave ten years of your life. After you graduated university you went off building a career. You loved your job so you dedicated hours on end to perfecting it, causing your romantic relationships to fail, one after the other. Nobody could keep your interest long enough to make you change your ways until you met Erwin. You saw him one morning while you were on your coffee run on the way to work and the sunshine made his hair glow golden. He was the most handsome man you had ever seen and you spend a good amount of time spying on him reading a newspaper on a window-side table while you queued to get your morning fix. You grabbed the paper cup and headed for the door but as you were about to leave you turned back on a whim and asked him out. Surprisingly he said yes and you started dating. 

He was such a gentleman and in your time with him you felt more loved than you ever did. Your first months together were like a vintage romantic movie filled with moonlight walks and candle lit dinners. He became a solid presence in your life and soon you couldn’t imagine the days before you met him, for he fit so naturally with you he was like an extension of your own body and mind. You shared many holidays and exciting moments together but your love felt the strongest in the quietest of times. He would sometimes sit on the couch and read a book and you would place your head on his lap and feel happiness burst out of your heart when he brushed his fingers through your hair. You were a good pairing because you did not always agree on everything but you had a way of communicating with each other which helped solve every problem you ever had. Every but one.

After three years of being together you got married and bought an apartment in the city you both worked in. It wasn’t that big of a change as you had basically lived together for more than a year beforehand. You made the decision to have children without knowing that faith had made that decision already for you and chosen for a negative result. No matter how many times and what you tried it never worked out. It started getting tiring and the gentle love making that you shared became a burden. You slowly lost the communication you used to have and drifted apart. With every centimeter added to the distance you left between your bodies when you slept at night, the coldness in your feelings grew and the love you used to share froze in you veins. The divorce came. There were no fights; you didn’t hate each other; you just became two people too exhausted to be together any longer and even though you still remembered the strong love you felt for him you let go because you needed something different. You stayed in touch and after the years of hurt and healing passed you learned how to be friends because you did always fit well together.

5.  
Mike came in your life when you finally let your heart flutter open once again. You didn’t hope to find love again because you were too old for that by now but life proved you wrong. What you had with Mike was different from the experiences you had up until that moment. You have had passion, you have had soul filling love but what he gave you was companionship. His presence in your life was like the supportive and engulfing calmness of a lake on an early summer morning when the rays bathe your face in warmth and your float on the surface in peace.

A friend of yours, concerned with your decision to remain alone for the rest of your life introduced you to him at one of the evening parties she liked to organize. In between wine and appetizers you found out he was a teacher at a local school who lost his wife five years ago to cancer. His story was sad but he wasn’t looking for sympathy, instead he entertained you with anecdotes from his work and listened attentively when you told him about yours. You agree when he asked you on a date and later that week you had coffee.

It was easy to be with him. He was not demanding and you were both over the grand gestures typical for young lovers. You did see qualities in each other that you didn’t like but you accepted them. You came to realize there is no such thing as a perfect partner but rather just features you can or cannot live with. When you are young you roam recklessly trying to find someone to perfectly fit you but you don’t stop to consider softening your own edges. That’s a privilege one should abuse though, because life is for living. The biggest mistake however is believing that this perfect person can make up for what one’s missing in their life. With Mike however you didn’t make that mistake. You were happy on your own and could live like that but you were happier with him, so after a couple of months of dating you moved in together. You relationship with him might have been seen as the settling down of people growing old and trying to escape from dying alone but the truth was, being with Mike showed you the beauty of turning fifty and you loved him for that. 

You knew when to steer clear of each other and you gave the other space to do what made them happy. There was no need to share special moments or all you time and that made the moments you spent together that more blissful. There was no urgency or expectations in the relationship just the decision to give each other a shoulder to lean on and a heart to connect to as long as it was needed, until the very end.

**Author's Note:**

> I was wondering for a long time whether to post this because it kind of lack in some of the aspects that make a good read like a well developed story or diallogue. But well here it is. If someone actually read it, thank you for you time, let me know if you enjoyed it; if you didn't you can also let me know I appreaciate constructive criticism. :)


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